And another one!

[coalcube]

I see my nemesis getting a fic that I love
And I'm like, "Fuck you" 
I guess my 10k letter wasn't enough
I'm like, "Fuck you and fuck morbane, too"
Said, "If I was a long commenter, they woulda gamed for me"
Ha, now ain't that some shit?
(Ain't that some shit?)
And although there's pain in my chest
I still comment it's the best
And runs to coal to shout "Fuck you" 

Nominations: Monday 18 to Thursday 28 September (Coordination | Evidence Post)
Sign-ups: Friday 13 to Saturday 21 October (NYR | Promo Post)
Assignments Out: Monday 23 October (may be earlier)
Default Deadline: Monday 11 December
Assignment Deadline: Monday 18 December
Main Collection Opens: Monday 25 December
Madness Opens: Tuesday 26 December
Author Reveals: Monday 1 January


Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark Discords for Namespace drama 18+ discussion. Google Group for PHs.

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Comments

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

As a person who often writes shorter, I am always confused by the assumption that minimum = bad.

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

Same. But from what I gather, there's an assumption among certain Yuletide participants that shorter automatically means "did the bare minimum work out of disinterest."

Like, no, I was very interested, it's just the story I came up with wrapped up in ~1200 words. It's still something I worked very hard on tailoring to my recip's letter!

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

Same x2. I push myself to hit 1K for exchanges and challenges with a minimum wordcount (my assignment this year isn’t like 1003 words but is less than 1.5K). I just don’t write long stuff most of the time! My longest standalone work is less than 5K and was written over multiple months (I intended it as a oneshot or twoshot and then I continued. Wasn’t for an exchange or anything.) The longest work I wrote this year was 3.6K and took a month (also not an assignment, and also wasn’t intended to be a specific wordcount, it just kinda kept going.) I worked hard on my assignment and think my recip will like it too, because it’s about their requested ship and likes and stuff.

I also wrote treats, some for my recipient and some for other people, and they’re all in Madness. If I write something between now and December 26 that’s long enough for the main collection that would be very impressive, even if it’s exactly 1K words.

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's minimum = bad necessarily, more the combo of just over minimum and just before deadline rings a little alarm bell.

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Not everyone who writes short fics doesn’t care, but 99% of people who don’t care write short fics. But hey, if you wrote a good one and your recip’s expecting it to be low effort, that just means they’ll be extra impressed by your 1k of gold!

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

Minimum + last minute rings of bus pass to me, which means what you get depends a lot on if they get around to updating the bus pass (now, exact minimum week one is a warning bell.)

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think all Yuletide gifts that are right around the minimum word count are bad, but in my experience, a lot of them do end up being disappointing. I feel like for every fic that's ~1,000 words and good, I see a couple that seem like they were tediously padded until they hit that 1k mark or got slammed to an abrupt conclusion once the minimum was achieved.

Re: what looks good/not so good, coalies?

[(Anonymous)]

+1

It's just based on experience. The vast majority of fics near the minimum I've received or read left me with an overwhelming "ok, and where's the rest?" feeling. Some people are really good at telling a complete, satisfying story in 1200 words or under, but a lot of writers aren't.